gp@stl.stc.co.uk (Gerald Pearse) (12/07/88)
Our PC hardware consists of a 1) TANDON 286 pc 2) 3c501 - 3com Ethernet card 3) Video Seven VGA card After installing DECNET DOS on the PC, when the machine is rebooted the machine just hangs. After contacting DEC software support I eventually found out that DECNET DOS does not work with the VGA cards. When I replaced the VGA card with an earlier VIDEO SEVERN Deluxe Card (the card that does EGA emulation but NOT VGA emulation) DECNET DOS comes up OK. And I can communicate with the VMS/VAX OK. Question: 1) Does anyone know of a work around to get the VGA card working with DECNET DOS. As there must be a difference in the way VIDEO SEVERN guys, have done the VGA card, and the earlier EGA card. Any ideas to the difference between the cards, as I may be able to frig the 3COM card. 2) With DECNET DOS operational with the EGA card installed, the responce is very 'lumpy'. DEC suggest changing several of the NCP EXECUTER characteristics but these have not made any noticeable change. The response is so bad that a serial line from another PC running DECNET DOS produce greater throughput. The lumpy response shows up in interactive use and on NFT file transfers. Unless this can be improved we will use the serial ports as they are faster !!!! Any help on these matters would be appreciated... Regards Gerald A Pearse
sas@bcd-dyn.UUCP (432 2370.00) (12/08/88)
The reason that your setup with DECnet DOS is so "lumpy" is because the 501 is a single buffered card, which cannot keep up with the VAX. You will either have to get DEC's DEPCA board, or possibly a newer 3COM card. I've heard that DEC is now supporting the newer 3COM's but have not confirmed that. I don't know why the 501 is not compatible with the VGA, but the DEPCA uses the same addresses as the VGA, and can't be moved, so it's out. -- =============================================================================== Scott A. Sharkey UUCP: osu-cis!bcd-dyn!sas I-LAN, Inc. USPS: 640 Lakeview Plaza Bvld. (614) 436-7651 Who? Me? I just work here!
huilin@hpindda.HP.COM (Hui Lin Lim) (12/09/88)
gp@stl.stc.co.uk (Gerald Pearse) writes: > Our PC hardware consists of a > 1) TANDON 286 pc > 2) 3c501 - 3com Ethernet card > 3) Video Seven VGA card > > After installing DECNET DOS on the PC, when the machine > is rebooted the machine just hangs. After contacting DEC > software support I eventually found out that DECNET DOS > does not work with the VGA cards. > > When I replaced the VGA card with an earlier VIDEO SEVERN > Deluxe Card (the card that does EGA emulation but NOT VGA > emulation) DECNET DOS comes up OK. And I can communicate with > the VMS/VAX OK. > > Question: > > 1) Does anyone know of a work around to get the VGA card working > with DECNET DOS. As there must be a difference in the way > VIDEO SEVERN guys, have done the VGA card, and the earlier > EGA card. Any ideas to the difference between the cards, > as I may be able to frig the 3COM card. I encountered this at my previous job and basically the problem is that some of the lower level modules that are loaded when DECNET-DOS is activated use interrupt vectors that were previously unused but at now used by the VGA. Unfortunately I can't remember exactly which ones they are. I believe the modules are DLL and the next one down. I tried patching the code to use another interrupt but found that it wasn't quite that simple as I couldn't trace all references to those (2 I think) interrupt vectors. From what I was told by a DEC engineer, those bits of code were not written by DEC (their explanation for why reserved/unused interrupt vectors were used). It's strange as the vectors involved are declared unused in some IBM docs and reserved in others. The easiest way of finding out which vectors are involved is to use one of the many programs which trace the chaining of TSRs - I believe that there's one called MAPMEM available from many BBs. Hui-Lin Lim ARPA: huilin%hpda@hplabs.hp.com UUCP: {ucbvax,hplabs}!hpda!huilin Phone: (408)447-2835
efb@suned1.UUCP (Everett F. Batey II) (12/14/88)
In article <882@acer.stl.stc.co.uk> gp@stl.stc.co.uk (Gerald Pearse) writes: >Our PC hardware consists of a >1) TANDON 286 pc >2) 3c501 - 3com Ethernet card >3) Video Seven VGA card >is rebooted the machine just hangs. After contacting DEC Just reading the literature on my new DEPCA ( with series E1 artwork ). The DEC card is able to avoid memory address conflicts with one of the common graphics cards which card is NOT relocatable. Wish I could remember if it was your card .. seemed like around E000(HEX) .. hope your problem is not so set in stone as memory addr conflicts. -- The_Main_User (So Calif SunLUG | Vta-SB-SLO-DECUS) efb@elroy.JPL.Nasa.Gov sun!tsunami!suned1!efb efbatey@nswses.arpa Statements, Opinions ... MINE ... NOT those of my US Employer